With help from Kate Tummarello, Katy Bachman, Rachael Bade and Alex Guillen

SCOOP: ROCKEFELLER WANTS ANSWERS FROM WHISPER — Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller blasted the app Whisper for reported consumer privacy violations, in a new letter sent to CEO Michael Heyward late Wednesday. Rockefeller is requesting that the company brief committee staff on how the app tracks its users and how it shares information with third parties. "While Whisper may provide its users a unique social experience, the allegations in recent media accounts are serious, and users are entitled to privacy policies that are transparent, disclosed and followed by the company," he writes.

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Whisper took heat last week after The Guardian published an expose (here: http://bit.ly/1tyNFVc) detailing the way the app — which promises anonymity — tracks its users’ movements, even in cases where they have declined geolocation tracking. The Guardian said the app is indefinitely "storing information about the precise time and approximate location of all previous messages posted through the app," and one team within the company is tracking specific users that it deems "newsworthy." In a lengthy response later that day, Whisper Editor-in-Chief Neetzan Zimmerman defended the company, saying its app does not collect personally identifiable information and users and the location data it does collect cannot precisely pinpoint users. Rockefeller, of course, has long been an advocate of stronger online privacy rules and regulations. Catch the full letter here: http://bit.ly/1wugBfO

BUZZ: UPTON'S OFFICE DENIES CALLS TO CEOS AFFILIATED WITH MAYDAY PAC — House Commerce Chairman Fred Upton’s office flatly denied that the lawmaker or his office had made “angry calls” to Silicon Valley players with ties to the Mayday PAC, which is spending about $1.5 million in Michigan’s 6th District to blast Upton. “I have never called anybody — donors or CEOs affiliated with Mayday PAC,” said Gary Andres, staff director for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, in a statement to POLITICO. “It just didn’t happen.” On Monday, The Huffington Post reported that Upton and Andres have been calling executives and “hammering them for coming after Upton." (That’s here: http://huff.to/1rqZLbC.) Upton’s office asked for “a correction/retraction of the story," Andres said. The Huffington Post has since added a clarification to its original report, quoting a similar denial from Andres.

The debate over the allegations was heating up on Wednesday, as Mayday PAC founder Lawrence Lessig called the reported outreach "outrageous." He said: “If news reports are true that he's using paid government staff to intimidate pro-reform donors with business before his committee, that's beyond outrageous — it would be unethical and possibly illegal." The American Democracy Legal Fund also asked the Office of Congressional Ethics to investigate whether Upton violated ethics rules based on the report.

LEAHY'S PUSHING AT&T, VERIZON, TWC AND CHARTER TO PLEDGE NET NEUTRALITY, TOO — Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy is pushing major telecom companies to pledge not to enter into paid prioritization agreements. The call follows his urging of Comcast for the same pledge earlier this week. "We need meaningful pledges from our nation’s broadband providers that they share the American public’s commitment to an Internet that remains open and equally accessible to all," he writes in the missives, which went to the CEOs of AT&T, Verizon, Time Warner Cable and Charter Communications. Those letters are all here: http://1.usa.gov/1rqZBkg

GOOD THURSDAY MORNING and welcome to Morning Tech, where we urge you to go get tickets to the Washington Ballet's “Petite Mort,” if you can tear yourselves away from tech policy long enough to watch an incredibly mesmerizing performance (more: http://bit.ly/1wuglgT). If you can't, send us tips and comments anyway at emershon@politico.com and @ eemershon. And catch the full team's contact info after speed read.

A WARNING TO THE GOP: YOU DON'T HAVE THE TECH YOU NEED IN 2016 — The Republican Party just doesn't have the seasoned, digitally savvy campaign veterans it needs for the 2016 race, POLITICO's Darren Samuelsohn reports. It needs experts to fight TV admen over budgets, write snappy email copy and leverage BigData to successfully target donors and voters, he writes. "That kind of tech savvy doesn’t just get made in a Harvard dorm room. It comes from live-fire experience in the latest election cycles. So while Democrats contemplate a small field where much of President Barack Obama’s vaunted campaign tech capacity transfers to Hillary Clinton, the GOP is facing a different dilemma. The tech experts it does have are likely to be scattered into a dozen or more campaigns," Darren reports. "POLITICO interviewed more than two dozen GOP tech types who are weighing job options for the 2016 race. Several said they are already in talks with potential candidates and their top advisers — weighing the decision to work long hours for little pay because of the résumé boost and to have a role in deciding the future direction of the party." More here: http://politi.co/1wugsJs

A PAUSED SHOT CLOCK ON AT&T-DIRECTV, AND THE COMPANY MISSES ESTIMATES — Like many of its tech brethren this week, AT&T missed Q3 estimates. The call was light on tech policy, too: CFO John Stephens managed to dodge questions about the company's proposed merger with DirecTV almost entirely. When asked about the FCC’s action Wednesday to pause the shot clock on the merger reviews, Stephens gave the company line: “That decision has nothing to do with the merits of the deal or the information we provided. There was a concern about the confidentiality of the information that some content companies were asked to provide. While the FCC stopping the clock is fairly common, today’s decision doesn’t change our view that we will be able to get the deal approved and closed in the first half of 2015. We’re still optimistic about the transaction,” he said.

— AND TODAY: COMCAST, AMAZON AND MICROSOFT REPORT: Comcast is likely to take some time to reassure Wall Street today that the FCC’s decision to pause the shot clock for the agency's review of the merger with Time Warner Cable is business as usual. The company could also address the DOJ’s mounting questions over the combined company’s grip on the broadband market. Comcast claims it will have only 35 percent of the market, but critics’ calculations come up with 40 percent or more.

Amazon spends money to bring in more revenue, but that has resulted in dismal profits, a long-standing frustration with analysts. The company confirmed Wednesday that it is working to enable its Rewards Visa Card for use with Apple Pay, but a spokesperson said there was no specific timeframe for when that would happen. Amazon has also been embroiled in a fight with publishers, so watch for executives to tout the deal signed this week with CBS’sSimon & Schuster. The company may also have a few words to say about the upcoming holiday buying season and mobile payments. Look for Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, too, to discuss his ongoing efforts to cut costs at the company. We'll have more as it comes today.

FILMON X IS READY TO PLAY BY PAY-TV RULES — FilmOn X, a tiny online TV company like Aereo that ran into similar regulatory trouble, is back — and ready to play by the rules, whether or not the FCC has actually finished writing them. Alex has the story: "The company is planning to restart its broadcast offering in seven American markets, saying it will play by FCC pay-TV rules and within copyright law. The firm had previously argued, like Aereo, that using tiny antennas to capture broadcast signals and offer them to online viewers didn’t violate federal copyright. But U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer disagreed and blocked that service in September 2013. The Supreme Court followed with its June decision against Aereo, saying that kind of service amounted to a protected public performance under copyright law."

"The company informed the FCC’s Media Bureau about its plans during a meeting last week. But there’s a lot of legwork ahead before FilmOn X could potentially relaunch, so something before early next year is unlikely." The service will undoubtedly face more questions, too, as the FCC reportedly considers new rules about multichannel programming distributors. More from Alex: http://politico.pro/ZO2eGC

POKER GROUP UNVEILS 'JOKER' LAWMAKERS — The Poker Players Alliance on Wednesday unveiled “Poker Jokers,” a list of federal and state lawmakers who oppose legalizing online poker and are running for office this year. Topping the 23-person bipartisan list are Rep. Jason Chaffetz and Sen. Lindsey Graham, who earlier this year introduced a bill to ban online gambling, backed by GOP mega-donor and casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. The full list: http://bit.ly/1tgN5t1

UPTON, CHALLENGER WON’T DEBATE — A debate between House Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton and Democratic challenger Paul Clements will not be rescheduled, according to the organizing chapter of the League of Women Voters. A debate was originally scheduled for last Thursday, but Upton canceled the day before to attend a hearing in D.C. on Ebola — a move that garnered criticism from Clements. Upton campaign manager Tom Wilbur said in an email that the chairman's participation in the Ebola hearing "was of utmost importance" and noted Upton and Clements have appeared together at two public forums.

FACEBOOK PAID ZERO U.K. TAXES — For the second year in a row, the social network paid no corporate taxes in the U.K., the Guardian reports. Employees, meanwhile, "received shares in the company worth tens of millions of pounds. The world’s largest social media company reported a pretax loss of £11.6m in the U.K. last year, despite its U.S. parent company reporting a net profit of $1.5bn (£900m).”

“U.K. revenues rose from £34.6m to £49.8m, according to Facebook U.K.’s latest financial filing at Companies House published on Wednesday. … The company made £371m in advertising revenue last year, a 67 percent year-on-year rise from the £222m in 2012. … Facebook U.K. incurred a corporation tax charge of just £3,169, and received a credit of £182,000.” http://bit.ly/1ou5Pp0

TODAY: LEE TALKS PATENTS AND NIST TALKS PRIVACY — USPTO’s Michelle Lee is set to talk patent policy at the American Intellectual Property Law Association conference — her first remarks since being nominated to be PTO director. Later in the day, NIST holds a conference on a wide range of privacy issues, including drones, cloud computing, Section 702 of FISA and health care.

MORE NET NEUTRALITY DATA, FOR ALL YOU SPREADSHEET GEEKS — In case you didn't get enough FCC comment data the first time the agency dumped more than a million files into an analyzable format, the FCC has more for you. The agency released on Wednesday the data from its second comment period — for a total of 2,444,672 comments received through various electronic means. The files are here — go wild: http://fcc.us/1tgNifU

SPEED READ

HUNGARY'S PLANNING A TAX ON INTERNET USE. The tax, which would start next year and would tax each gigabyte of data "started", is already being heavily protested in the country, the Wall Street Journal reports from Budapest: http://on.wsj.com/1rr0d9C

FREE SHIPPING IS GETTING MORE EXPENSIVE. E-commerce companies are trying to make offering the expensive perk a little easier on their bottom lines, the WSJ writes: http://on.wsj.com/1rr0Dgo

MARK UDALL WILL FIGHT FOR SURVEILLANCE REFORM, BUT HE'S NOT GETTING TECH'S CASH. The Washington Post takes a look at why Udall hasn't been receiving as much campaign help as some of his Democratic counterparts: http://wapo.st/1rr0GZx

GOOGLE AIMS HIGH WITH INBOX. Google completely rethought email for its new app, the New York Times reports: http://nyti.ms/1rr0No1

ICYMI: ZUCKERBERG LEARNED MANDARIN. The Facebook CEO posted a Q&A in which he answers every question in Mandarin, Wired reports: http://wrd.cm/1rr0I3D

** A message from CTIA: There are few economic success stories like the wireless industry. It’s valued at $195.5 billion, which is larger than hotels and lodging, air transportation, motion picture and recording and motor vehicle manufacturing industries. Since the 2010 FCC wireless-specific net neutrality rules, Americans’ mobile data use increased more than 700%, more apps were offered than in any other three year period and American carriers invested 73% more in their networks than the top five European Union countries. Thanks to carriers’ investments, between 2010 and 2013 smartphone speeds increased eight fold, and we went from 215,000 LTE subscribers to 95.2 million. That's more than a 44,000% increase. These facts prove wireless is improving Americans’ lives and our economy. Why do some insist on bogging it down with unnecessary regulation? The FCC should make its decision based on facts, not fiction. Learn more at www.ctia.org/net-neutrality. #WirelessIsDifferent **